Close Encounters 16: Skyfall

She was having fun on their might-have-been first date. And she felt good even when their conversation veered away from 2003 flirting and touched on their time in the jungle or his father's disappearance off the grid; she still felt good.

And yeah, they'd had more than a few conversations with Dr King about panic attacks and his paranoia over the years, but this tonight, this was just them. They'd built this with every session over the last four years, the ability to forgive and see each other's perspective, and now it was bearing fruit inside of Ernie's deli.

"Look at us having a normal conversation, normal dinner," he laughed, his mind apparently on the same track as hers.

"We are good at this," she grinned back. She'd gotten the cabbage rolls and potato cakes, and she'd already devoured all three of the potato cakes before Castle had managed his first bite. "Hey, will you go get me another order of these?"

"Yeah. Just three? Maybe I should get you a double order, Beckett. You're going to steal mine; I can feel it."

She eyed the three still left on his plate. "Maybe you should."

He laughed and pushed his chair back; they'd chosen a table in the corner, Castle skittish of the clear-glass front windows, and now it was a production getting around the other patrons. He was probably hamming it up for her too, and she reached out to let her fingers skim his ass as he passed her.

"Oh, promises, promises," he murmured, winking as he moved for the deli counter.

She put her fork in his potato cake and dragged it over onto her own plate. The program she'd started when they'd gotten back from the Congo was intense. The Krav Maga sessions alone were grueling, but added to that were the running schedule, the deep-cover exercises, and the four hours of international diplomacy training. She was determined to get her proficiency though, because she knew it put his mind at ease. She thought it was only fair - if she was going to keep throwing herself into danger to save him, she'd better be equipped.

She was also certifying to carry, officially, as a CIA Special Operations Officer like Castle. She'd gone out as an analyst and an agent, but never an officer, and it meant she would have access to heavy duty weapons as well as whatever piece she'd carry on her own. Those target practices were nothing like the 'aim and shoot' lessons at the police academy. These were intensive, rolling around, wrestling hand-to-hand, all-out battles for supremacy.

But being an SO Officer provided her less legal protection should she be discovered on foreign soil (unlike claiming diplomatic status). She and Castle had been talking about it at length lately, but as she'd already pointed out - she only went on missions with him. They were partners, and if she was captured overseas, he would be too.

And better that they both have the weapons to fight back.

She was ravenous. And these potato cakes were so good. Ever since the Congo, everything tasted better. Everything was sharper and more vibrant, and she knew it was partly that heady feeling of getting away with something that should have killed her - Black should have killed her - but it was also having her husband still here.

He was stronger than she'd given him credit for, and he'd come when she'd needed him. More than that, he had made a way, made it possible to attain the last of the regimen and so - yeah - yeah, she felt good.

New lease on life, right?

"I see you have decimated my potato cakes."

She grinned up at him as he came back with a white paper sack, grease already staining the bottom. "You got me more?"

"I did."

"How many are in that sack?"

"Fifteen."

She gasped and laughed, held her hands out eagerly for the bag. "Because you really do love me."

"I must," he sighed. "But at least three of those are for me."

"Three?"

"Three," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Fine, I suppose. Whatever." She opened the bag and used the crinkly paper inside to pull out three. He took them from her quickly as they burned the tips of her fingers.

"Watch out. Hot," he said, dropping the potato cakes to his plate and sucking on his fingers. She bit her lip to keep from reaching out and doing it herself, the oil of the cakes and the width of his finger on her tongue...

Yikes. Time to go home. Right now. "Hey, let's hurry this up."

He lifted an eyebrow. His meal was only half finished, though she'd eaten one cabbage roll and made a considerable dent in her second. "Beckett."

"Yeah, you can't tease me like that and then take your time over your meal. Come on. I was too tired to move last night but tonight I want some action."

"You got action last night too," he reminded her, pointing his fork in her direction. "I did all the work."

"Yes, I know. But now I want to do the work."

He grinned, that wolf-like smile that made his eyes slit so narrow and his mouth pull back - the good one. The one that meant she was in for it. "I could go for that. You did promise handcuffed to the headboard."

"And I meant it. Narrow window of opportunity here, soldier. Finish your food - fast."

He scoffed at her. "Narrow window? No way, sweetheart. Your window is wide open for me."

Now that they were allowed back at the Office, they'd taken to finding curious routes to work every morning. Castle made a game of trying to get them lost and testing her knowledge of the city and her innate sense of direction. On Wednesday, they came upon a wild garden nestled behind an alleyway with a private gate sent into a crumbling brick wall.

They were running late, but she had to stop, just inside the wrought-iron, and take deep breaths of the early-blooming white jasmine. The brick at her back was chilly with early morning dew, but Castle came up behind her and his palm warmed her spine. The bricked-in garden had been forgotten, but nature had asserted herself, claiming every inch and even pushing out the loose bricks.

Castle's soft kiss was another note of wonder in the midst of the walls.

"Does it go all the way through?" he asked. His breath was warm along her cheek and he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear almost absently, his eyes scanning the garden too.

The orange tree in the center of the space shifted its silver-limned leaves in the early morning light, the rustle of possibility in its tight buds. It made her throat hurt with that sharp tang of citrus.

"We should remember this place. Come back when there are oranges." She could almost taste them, sour and running with juice, that tart spice that wild things had.

"Bring Sasha. She has a kinship with the wild," Castle added.

It made her happy, knowing he saw it the same way she did - a tiny corner of the earth that the world hadn't been able to invade. It made a difference.

Not everything was lost. Even in the ruins...

Castle took her hand and she let him tug her lightly along the brick path, old and well-worn, brown with mud, a relic from another century. The garden had grown wild, weeds sprouting up fast and hardy between what had been regular flower beds, limbs hanging low and overburdened with new leaves. The wildflowers had already bloomed, dots of yellow and white with their black faces to the sun. A few daffodils too, meandering under the trees in a ragged line.

The path went through to a narrow gate that ran behind a laundromat, waves of warm, wet air falling over them from the industrial dryers. "No wonder," Castle said. "It's a greenhouse back here."

The alley opened up onto a side street; Kate instinctively turned left and brought them back out onto a wide avenue they knew. From there it was only blocks to a subway station where Castle bought one-time cards with cash.

They rode in silence, standing up and their bodies swaying with the motion of the car, but the memory of warm air and flowers growing up out of brick walls stayed with her.

It wasn't that work couldn't touch them any longer.

It did; it was. Hours were long - as they always had been - and dinner was often a grim reminder at nine o'clock as their stomachs growled on the walk home. The focus on Bracken had narrowed to a point where it seemed irresponsible to stop. They called Jim to take Sasha for a few days when the evidence came in and filled two rooms with boxes; they stayed up at the Office for forty-eight hours straight.

Sorting through it all became Beckett and Malone's jobs. They inventoried every print-out and every hand-written note, went back through testimony and cross-checked it with Secret Service surveillance. Malone wrote a computer program to index and run analysis, and they were constantly getting hits and having to research the data.

Bracken's money trail was a circuitous line, but it connected the sex trafficking to the Senator's own office, and with the testimony of his former Chief of Staff, they had some damning evidence.

She wasn't sure it was enough; she was afraid it would never be enough. But it was a start. The AG's office had five of its best prosecutors on the case and they were constantly calling her to check some detail or log an item. She'd normally be worried about evidence disappearing or being tampered with but the security in place was serious. Malone would walk with her from the evidence room and they'd sign out together for lunch or breaks. At the end of the day, two MPs hovered behind them as they locked up every sealed container and then locked the doors as well.

On Friday after a session with King, Castle drove them up to Stone Farm. As they had every week since their return, they each had a regular physical with Boyd. That Friday Kate went first while Castle made them a light dinner in the kitchen. When it was his turn, she took over at the stove and finished his scrambled eggs, put them in the oven to keep warm while he was gone.

She moved to flip the pancake in the skillet, and she realized it wasn't a pancake at all. He was making potato cakes for her, beautiful man. Kate grinned and picked up the spatula, turned the potato cake to keep it from burning. No wonder he hadn't even been done when she was finished with her check-up.

The band-aid in the crook of her arm was starting to pinch, so she ripped it free, removed the cotton ball below to look at it. Boyd had drawn blood, always worried about her anemia, but he didn't have the best sticking moves. She could already see the bruise forming at the skin.

She threw away the band-aid and washed her hands, the smell of butter and cheese and potatoes thick in the air. She opened up the freezer and hunted through the various items left behind until she found frozen fruit. Not ideal, but better than just greasy potato cakes. Castle, ever mindful of lipoproteins, would probably eat every last bite of those eggs.

Kate had everything ready by the time Castle came down the hall. Logan was at his heel, and he whistled when he stopped in the doorway.

"How did I let you slip through my fingers?" Logan said, happily sitting down at the table and taking a plate. "Gorgeous and you can cook too."

"Castle got it started," she said. "And yes, we made enough for everyone."

Logan grinned and kept right on dishing out food. But Castle came to her instead, slid his hand around her waist and pulled their bodies together. His kiss was light, a smile interrupting it when it had just gotten good, and he had eyes only for her.

"Thanks," he murmured, another little kiss below her jaw. "Good check up?"

"Easy. You?"

"As pie, love. Oh, pie. Do you know how to make pie? I've never tried."

"I know how," she laughed, pushing him to sit at the table with Logan. "Technically. But I'm not sure it would turn out. What kind?"

"Apple," Logan butted in. "Or pecan. My favorites."

"Hey now, this is my pie. Pie for my birthday," Castle said, pushing on Logan's shoulder. He pushed a little too hard, apparently not knowing his own strength or tapping into some latent and unlooked for emotion, and Logan nearly hit the floor. Their friend was laughing, like it was all in good fun, but Kate shot Castle a quick look and their eyes met.

The raw parts of him were showing.

She came to his side and briefly palmed the back of his head, pulling him in against her for a hug. He gripped the back of her thigh with a possessive and fierce clutch, and then he let her go.

They were trying, but Castle was still frustrated, maybe even wounded. He had a right to be wounded, and his father was still an unknown enemy out there - and she hadn't forgotten.

She hoped that helped somehow, his wound being acknowledged. She hoped that with enough time the wound would heal and then they could grow around the scar.

"Sit down and eat, Kate," he said softly. That the tenderness could come so quickly gave her heart a lift and she sat down beside him, pressed her shoulder to his, and passed him the bowl of scrambled eggs.

They opted to drive back to New York that night rather than stay in that little room downstairs. Neither of them could quite face those memories, and besides, they'd left Sasha at home. The moon had come out and the sky was clear, stars mere pricks of light against the oncoming traffic. The interstate was busy and Castle was driving so she could study him.

"Do we need to talk about it?" she said finally.

"No? No. I don't think so. Same as it ever was."

She'd said I'm sorry a hundred times; it held no more power so she didn't try it. She smoothed her thumb across the bruise in the crook of her arm, pushed against the skin to feel the discomfort.

"I keep having these dreams," he said finally.

"Same dreams that make you so happy?" She wasn't stupid; his discomfort when she'd brought it up, the curious hunch of his shoulders, the only very slightly panicked look in his eyes had given him away. He wasn't having sex dreams about her.

"Yeah. Deeply happy," he rumbled. His voice had changed as well, that dark and rich texture that usually meant happy times for her too. But not this.

"And?"

"I dream of murdering him."

Oh.

She pressed her fingers flat to the bruise and wrapped her hand around her elbow, held her arms against her chest.

"Slitting his throat, usually. With a knife. That same knife. Ear to ear. We used to call it pumpkin carving."

"We?" she said, clearing her throat when the word stuck.

"The guys in the Special Ops group - the one attached to the Army in Afghanistan."

Pumpkin carving.

"Because you dig in and make a smile," he murmured.

She wondered if he had called it pumpkin carving. She somehow couldn't imagine her husband ever having that level of callous disregard for human life.

"You never did that," she said. "You'd have made it quick."

He sighed.

She was right; she knew it. That one little breath.

"On Monday the grand jury convenes to hear sworn testimony," Castle said then.

"Yes," she answered. She knew this already. All the work this week had been to that end. She was becoming close friends with Agent McCord out of the AG's office, and Malone was like another little brother - the three of them coordinating the evidence. "Castle, dreaming about killing him isn't the same as actually doing it."

"I know that."

"So don't feel guilty for it. You can't control dreams. And if it helps - I don't know what King would say, but I say, go for it. Pumpkin carve, if that's what helps."

"I don't know that it helps," he rasped. "It feels mostly awful."

She reached across the center console and squeezed his thigh. "I know, sweetheart."

"It shouldn't feel awful. He deserves it. He deserves it."

"Doesn't mean it won't feel awful. Even when justice comes, doesn't mean you're not knotted and tangled up inside."

He cast her a swift look and dropped his hand to lay over hers. "Your mom. I'm - sorry. I haven't even..."

"It feels mostly awful," she admitted. "But in a good way too? I don't know."

He laced their fingers together and brought her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. "I want to murder my own father, Kate. And here we are in the middle of a case to take down a man who stole your mother from us."

From us. She closed her eyes to the way that snared inside her, how Castle had never known her mother either, how that had been taken from them too. Castle, whose own mother was a little unreliable, could have benefitted from a mother like hers right now.

Maybe he could also benefit from his own.

They should probably talk about that.

Kate had fallen asleep by the time Castle parked the Range Rover in the underground parking garage a few blocks from their home. He'd found this strange little place nearly three months ago and the owner had been desperate for a lot of money fast. So Castle had paid for the next five years' worth of parking rental, and now there was absolutely no trail leading back to them, plus their identifiable car wasn't sitting out on the street.

He looked over at her sleeping form. Once again, Kate had talked him into having dinner with Martha.

She was good, his wife; she was very clever. He wasn't sure how she always managed it, but here they were again, Castle making a note on his phone to remind him to call in the morning. It has to come from you.

He put the keys in his pocket and turned to study her in the passenger seat. Deep sleep had claimed her; she was a breath away from drooling. He almost reached out to wake her, but he gave himself a moment instead.

Despite his reluctance to really know his mother, despite even his issues with his father, this was good. Life was good. He didn't know when, exactly, in his youth he'd reconciled himself to the idea that life was only going to be tolerable at best, but now that it was good - it was so good.

They'd joked about their 2003 selves, and he'd given her an idea of what his past had been like, but sitting in the car with his wife asleep, the tick of the engine as it cooled, and the visions they had for tomorrow made him sharply aware of how good he had it.

Thank you.

To who, to what, to an entity or being or force, Castle had no idea. But he felt like the gratitude was necessary to speak, give voice to, because to do otherwise was to take it for granted.

"Thank you," he murmured into the night.

Beside him, Kate stirred and her head rolled towards him. Her eyes were clear if tired, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

"We're here," he said softly.

"Mmm, good," she sighed. "Been waiting so long."

And then her eyes slipped shut like she was still in a dream.

Kate brushed her fingers over his neck to keep him quiet, moved away from the table to head for the bathroom.

They'd chosen a restaurant close to where Martha lived, and she'd been late, of course, but enthusiastic when she'd arrived. Kate had found herself being the mediator again, the ambassador between two entities who didn't even have a common language, but she didn't mind.

She went to the bathroom and washed her hands, hoped they were doing okay out there. She'd wanted to give Castle and his mother a chance to talk on their own, without her 'help', and when she came back out into the main room, she saw Martha was at least trying.

She sat down on Castle's side of the booth, patted his knee under the table. "Don't let me interrupt."

Martha beamed her a smile. "I was just telling a story about the show."

"Oh? What play are you doing? Can we come?"

Martha flushed and waved her off. "Oh, it's ages from now. But I would love for you two to see me. I adore this one - it's an off-Broadway production of a little known Coward play. It's about a woman who is washed up, forgotten - oh, it has so much in it I can relate to."

Beside Kate, Castle gave a little grunt of something she knew was no shit, but she elbowed him lightly and he dutifully kept the conversation going.

"You'll let us know when it starts?" he said. "We can work our schedule out."

"Of course." Martha looked flustered at this, like she hadn't expected her son to quite so boldly declare he'd make a special effort. Their relationship had improved in fits and starts, but it had improved. They had dinners and drinks, they'd seen her one-woman production a few months ago, and Castle had even bought his mother a Christmas gift.

Oh, which they had never given her. Shit, she'd forgotten. "Oh, Martha, we have a Christmas gift for you at home. We need to send it to you."

"A - Christmas gift?" she said, her hands coming to her chest. "Oh, dear, that's lovely. You shouldn't have."

"Of course we should have," Kate laughed. "You're family. Rick's mother. We love you. We were just - a little indisposed this Christmas."

"Oh dear," Martha said, glancing over at Castle. "But everything is okay now?"

"I got sick," Castle sighed. "It was bad. Kate and I didn't get a chance to celebrate Christmas. But - I'm fine now. We figured it out, and we got what we needed. Kate saved my life."

Martha looked pale, and Kate realized they hadn't even told her. And now Castle was telling his mother that he'd been deathly ill. She was fingering the jewel in her bright, heavy ring, and she gave her son a long look. "You were sick as a child. So sick," she murmured.

"We didn't want to worry you," Kate said softly.

Castle gave her a swift look, and she saw he realized it too, what they'd inadvertently told his mother - that she hadn't been first on the list when they had circled the wagons. The Office had known, Mitch and Espo and Ryan, Carrie, Kate's own father, but neither of them had thought to call Martha.

"We're having - uh, we're doing dinner at our house for my birthday," Castle said quickly. "If you come, we can give you your Christmas gift then."

Kate was stunned. He'd just invited his mother to their home. He'd been so adamant that his mother couldn't be trusted with that responsibility, that she'd never take the steps necessary to keep from being followed, that she'd lead enemies back to them.

"Oh, of course, yes. Your birthday," Martha said softly, smiling at him. "April Fool's Day, and what a trick I pulled on them all. Having my boy. You know they told me not to."

Castle's fingers came to Kate's at his knee and tangled sharply, a squeeze of her hand that practically cut off her circulation. His mother had affected him, still affected him, and she leaned her shoulder against his in support.

"Rick was telling me about the last time he remembered getting sick," she started, trying to transition them away from the vulnerable places. "He said you took him to your dressing room and he cuddled up to the register?"

Martha smiled widely, but she was still giving Castle that fond look, the one that showed there was so much more to her story than an actress who had given up her son because he didn't fit into her life.

"He was a sickly kid," Martha said. "Every few months it was something else. At first, I took time off from a show to stay at home with him but then I couldn't - it was just so much time away."

"He was that sick as a kid?" Kate laughed. "No. Really?"

"All the time. Every cold - he caught it. He'd go to a friend's when I had a practice, and then he'd come down with stomach flu. One year when he was three, I promise, he had a cold from November until February. One after another."

Kate sat back in the booth, absolutely confounded by the idea of her super spy as a sickly little toddler.

Martha shook her head and gave a little sigh. "That's how he convinced me, you know."

Castle stiffened. "Convinced you."

"You were always so sick. Your father - he said, send him out of the city. Give his lungs a chance to heal, fresh air. So it was the boarding school for kindergarten. I could - I needed to work without - I had to work. We needed the money. And you were better. The headmaster said you didn't have a single cold that year. And even with winter..."

Kate felt the awful dread building in her chest. "You mean boarding school was his father's idea. And then Castle was miraculously healed?"

Miraculously healed. The regimen. Had to be. The files from the Congo installation had said Charlie One, dated 1974, Patient Zero. 1974 - when Castle had been five years old.

"He had the money, and what could I..." Martha trailed off, cleared her throat with a dramatic wave of her hand, a narrowing of her brilliant blue eyes. "It's all in the past. It's over. Now for a birthday dinner. What are we having? I could make your birthday cake, darling!"

"We're having - pie," Castle said, sitting back. "But. I. Okay. Birthday cake. Kate?"

He turned to her with such desperation that she bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Of course. Martha, you bring the cake."

Was Castle the Patient Zero in the program called Charlie One?